Learning how to properly express ourselves and our feelings is an essential life skill–especially for children. Teaching children emotional regulation is key to helping them grow into emotionally healthy and resilient adults. But how can we ensure that our children learn the tools and skills they need to successfully navigate life’s ups and downs? In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of teaching children emotional regulation and tips for helping them build these essential life skills.
1. Gaining Control Over Emotional Responses
Life is full of moments of surprise, disappointment and joy, all of which contains feelings that can affect you in both a mental and physical way. Whether you want to get better control over your emotions or develop tools for coping with an emotional situation, there are no quick fixes. Developing control over emotional responses takes time, practice and continual effort. Here are some strategies you can use to help:
- Own your emotions: Recognise all your emotions, and take the time to thoughtfully understand and listen to what they’re telling you. Do not dismiss or ignore your feelings, own them and identify what is causing them.
- Deep Breathing: A calming technique to help reduce stress and anxiety. Take a long, slow breath in through your nose and a deep breath out through your mouth. Focusing on your breath helps to keep your current situation in perspective.
- Change Your Physical State: Motion changes emotion. When emotions arise, move around – go for a walk, take a shower or stretch. These activities will help to reduce the intensity of the emotion and shift your focus.
Building control of your emotional reactions takes patience and practice. Not every technique will work for everyone, so it’s important to experiment and find out what works best for you. It is advised to talk to a qualified professional if you feel overwhelmed and the techniques to manage your emotional reactions are no longer helping.
It’s important to stay mindful of the way you respond to different triggers in your life. Developing and maintaining a healthier relationship with you emotions will help you stay resilient, well-balanced and in control of your reactions.
2. Cultivating Tools for Healthy Emotional Regulation
Learning how to effectively regulate emotions is essential for any individual. The tools that we use for self-regulation are an important part of our emotional health. With the right type of self-care, we can increase our capacity to manage our emotions and cultivate healthier responses to stress.
1. Identifying Triggers and Managing Feelings
It can be difficult to regulate emotions without understanding the underlying triggers. Identifying them helps us to take the necessary steps to control our responses and cultivate positive, healthy behaviors. It is also important to practice understanding the types of feelings we are having and how to appropriately manage them. This could take the form of mindfulness-based practices such as meditation, journaling, or even talking to a friend.
2. Making Use of Cognitive Reframing Practices
Cognitive reframing is a powerful tool for helping us to view our emotions, situations, and life events in a healthier light. It can help us to shift our thought processes and view our experiences in a more positive and constructive manner. Practicing this type of reframing can help us to cultivate healthier reactions and responses to our emotions and experiences.
3. Developing Coping Skills
Having an arsenal of healthy coping skills is a great way to regulate our emotions. Here are a few common baisc coping skills:
- Deep breathing
- Grounding and calming activities
- Distraction and creative hobbies
- Exercising and stretching
- Listening to music
Developing our own set of self-care techniques can help us to cultivate healthy ways of regulating our emotions and maintain emotional and mental wellbeing.
3. Inspiring Resilience in Young Minds
It is essential for young minds to develop resilience. Often, children and teenagers tend to find themselves in complex and difficult situations that can be very overwhelming. With the right support and guidance, these young minds can develop ways to adapt and handle adversity.
Foster a Growth Mindset
Help them to understand that intelligence and ability can improve with effort and practice. That way, they will grow in confidence and be more likely to take risks and achieve success. Encourage them to try out new activities, and reinforce the idea of a growth mindset.
Build Authority and Autonomy
Give them the freedom to make their own decisions, take action on them and accept the consequences. This is an important way for them to learn how to stay resilient. Instill in them the ability to trust their own judgments so that they don’t just give up when faced with something challenging.
Teach them Problem Solving
Developing problem solving skills is one of the best ways to foster resilience. Guide them through activities and exercises that teach them how to think through complex problems and explore a range of solutions. Encourage critical thinking that pushes them to keep trying different approaches.
- Talk to them about failure and the lessons learnt from it.
- Encourage them to develop a sense of curiosity.
- Model resilience and adaptability in your own life.
Initiate important conversations with young minds and listen to their perspectives when discussing matters. The idea is to encourage them to be resilient and acknowledge the importance of positive mindset in the face of difficulties.
4. Nurturing Emotional Regulation for a Brighter Future
It can be a challenge to effectively manage your emotions, especially when life throws unexpected events your way. However, learning to properly regulate our emotions is an important part of creating positive and long-lasting relationships with others. Cultivating strong emotional regulation skills is essential for achieving a brighter future.
The first step to mastering emotional regulation is to create awareness of your feelings. It’s important to learn to recognize the emotions you’re experiencing and the reason behind them. Once you understand what you’re feeling, you can begin to embrace it in a healthier way. That might mean finding outside help, such as talking to someone who can support you in finding meaningful ways to handle all of your emotions.
As you work towards developing a better understanding of your emotions, learning how to manage them effectively can be key. Here are some strategies that can help:
- Use positive self-talk. Figure out how to motivate yourself by using positive internal dialogue and affirmations.
- Focus on taking deep breaths and slowly exhaling each time you consciously calm yourself.
- Engage in activities that build emotional resilience and self-compassion.
- Take regular timeouts to remove yourself from negative environments in order to recalibrate.
On a practical level, emotional regulation may mean removing yourself from situations or people that make you feel triggered. The key is not to shy away from how you’re feeling, nor to run away from it. Working through your emotions and addressing them in healthy ways is one of the best ways to ensure your mental wellbeing is taken care of.
By strengthening and practicing these emotional regulation skills, you can create a brighter future for yourself by gaining a greater understanding of your mental health and wellbeing. Keeping this practice alive can help to create more fulfilling and meaningful relationships.
As parents, it is essential to equip our children with the necessary skills to understand and express their emotions in ways that bring out their best. However, teaching emotional regulation is no easy feat. With a steady and empathetic approach, children can be taught to identify their own feelings and understand how to regulate them in constructive ways. With practice, they can take these skills with them into adulthood, giving them the building blocks for better relationships and a healthier life.
